Capital Allocators – Inside the Institutional Investment Industry

Paul Rabil is the co-founder and CEO of the Premier Lacrosse League or PLL, a new tour-based league of the top professional lacrosse players in the world that will debut on June 1st.  Paul was the #1 player in the draft for Major League Lacrosse in 2008 after winning a national championship at Johns Hopkins.  He is a 7-time Champion and 3-time MVP.  Alongside his on-the-field accomplishments, Paul...

A few months ago, Marcel van de Hoef interviewed me on his podcast, The Meeting Strategist.  He created Meeting Strategist to help senior professionals across industries think more strategically about business conversations and improve their listening, questioning and meeting skills.  With his permission, I've shared that discussion on this week's show.  You can learn more about his work at meetin...

I've received several emails over the last bunch of months asking for my take on the investing world and the topics we cover on the show. Fortunately, I've had a chance to appear as a guest on a few other podcasts, and thought I would share some of those conversations from time to time. About a year and a half ago, Patrick O'Shaughnessy interviewed me to discuss the book I wrote on his amazing pod...

  Last fall, I sat down with a fellow former hedge fund of funds professional Khe Hy, who left the business a few years ago and has developed a fascinating media platform around introspection, self-awareness, and self-development. Certainly a set of characteristics we don't normally associate with folks in the asset management business. Khe interviewed me about my career path and some lessons I've...

Dan Ariely is a renowned behavioral economist, author, entrepreneur, and investor.  He is the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University and a founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight.  Dan is the author of six books, most of which have the word "Irrationality" in the title and has a weekly column in the The Wall Street Journal called "Ask Ariely....

Jordi Visser is the President & CIO of $1.7 billion Weiss Multi-Strategy Advisers, an asset management firm with a 40-year history of focusing on innovative investment processes and cutting edge thought leadership.  Our conversation covers Jordi's decade of learning at Morgan Stanley, and then turns to a deep dive on all aspects of Weiss' equity market neutral, multi-manager process, including the...

Manny Friedman is the founder of EJF Capital.  Manny discussed his background and his nuanced take on markets last July in Episode 61 of the podcast. In that conversation, he mentioned a new regulation in the U.S. that created an area of investing called Economic Opportunity Zones.  I started learning about Economic Opportunity Zones from Manny and dove in for my day job.  Since then, more and mor...

Manny Friedman is the CEO of EJF Capital, a firm he co-founded in 2005 that manages $9 billion with a focus on the financial services industry. Manny started EJF after his retirement from Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group, Inc., a company he co-founded in 1989 and served as Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer.  Our conversation looks back at Manny's lifelong passion for investing, the global...

Tom Russo is the Managing Member of Garnder Russo & Gardner. Last week, Tom talked in detail about his holding in Berkshire Hathaway.  This week, we continue the conversation with his new holding in Google. Our conversation covers buying Google now, comparing the company to Facebook, future growth opportunities starting from a large base, competition from Amazon, Google X's long-term moonshots, an...

Tom Russo is the Managing Member of Gardner Russo & Gardner.  Tom and I sat down in Episode 16 to discuss his background and investment strategy in what was one of the most popular episodes on the show.  He oversees $13B in a global value strategy focused on family-operated public companies. Our second conversation is a two-part episode for this week and next.  First, we talk solely about his hold...

Tom Russo is the Managing Member of Gardner Russo & Gardner, where he manages $11 billion in a long only, global value strategy. Tom buys the stock of global consumer businesses with great brands and holds them for a really long time. He looks for businesses with a capacity to reinvest free cash flow and a capacity to suffer through short-term pain in order to achieve long-term gain. Tom started h...

Matt Botein is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Gallatin Point Capital, a $1.5 billion private investment company he founded after departing from BlackRock, where he had served as the Chief Investment Officer and Co-Head of the firm's $160 billion Alternatives business.  Before sitting atop that lofty perch, Matt formed a bank after the financial crisis, was a Managing Director at hedge fund...

Rahul Moodgal has spent 20 years as a fund raiser across long only strategies, hedge funds, fund of funds, customized solutions, start-ups, and non-profits.  Collectively, Rahul has raised and helped raise $60 billion for firms since 2005.  He started his career in the industry at powerhouse TT International, and later joined The Children's Investment Fund (TCI) where he led the marketing effort t...

Chris Ailman is the chief investment officer of the $220 billion pool for California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS). He joined CalSTRS back in 2000 after 4 years as CIO of the Washington State Investment Board and 11 years as CIO of the Sacramento Country Employees Retirement System.  Chris is a legend in the business and the list of accolades for his work is longer that the list of m...

Steve Kuhn is a retired hedge fund manager.  He spent two decades in the industry, specializing in mortgage-backed securities at Cargill, Citadel, Goldman Sachs, and Pine River.  In his last stint in the business until his retirement in 2016, Steve was a Partner and Portfolio Manager at then $14 billion Pine River Capital Management and was one of the hedge fund industry's most widely known fixed...

Donna Snider is a Managing Director at the $4 billion Kresge Foundation, where she has worked for ten years as one of three senior team members under Chief Investment Officer Rob Manilla.  Last summer, Institutional Investor named Donna the number one ranked Most Wanted CIO of the future. Our conversation starts with Donna sharing the cross fertilization of bringing her sell side trading experienc...

Ron Biscardi is the Co-Founder and CEO of Context Capital Partners and a Partner and Board Member of Context Summits.  Ron sits at the intersection of buyers and sellers for small funds, and actively invests as a provider of acceleration capital.   Our conversation covers Ron's path from an engineer to an asset management entrepreneur, the challenges and opportunities of investing in small hedge f...

Jean Hynes is a Managing Partner at Wellington Management, where she one of three people responsible for the governance of Wellington's storied partnership.  Jean also is the sector leader of the firm's healthcare team that manages the Vanguard Healthcare Fund, three global healthcare hedge funds, and global healthcare sector portfolios. She joined Wellington after graduating from college in 1991...

Jennifer Prosek is the founder and CEO of Prosek Partners, a leading international public relations and financial communications consultancy with offices in New York, London, Los Angeles and Connecticut. Prosek Partners ranks among the top 10 independent public relations firms in the U.S., and among the top financial communications consultancies.  The firm has been listed as an Inc. 5000 Fastest G...

Please enjoy this countdown of the top 10 most downloaded episodes of Capital Allocators in 2018 (and top 5 most downloaded episodes featuring CIOs). If you have any ideas and can make introductions to guests who might crack next year's top 10, please send the my way.  Wishing you a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year.

Tim McCusker is the Chief Investment Officer at NEPC, an investment consultant that advises on $1 trillion in assets on behalf of 400 institutional clients.  Tim oversees NEPC's 50-person investment research team and leads investment strategy for the firm.  In each of 2014, 2015, and 2016, CIO Magazine recognized Tim as one of the world's most influential consultants. Our conversation covers NEPC'...

Brent Beshore is the founder and CEO of Adventur.es , an investment firm that buys small family-owned businesses with the intention of holding them indefinitely.  After launching a few businesses out of college, Brent developed a distinct investment strategy and style. Earlier this year, he raised outside capital for the first time in a permanent capital vehicle, and I am a happy investor in the f...

Tom Bushey is the founder of Sunderland Capital, a Boston-based hedge fund he started in 2016.  Tom graduated from the Wharton School as an undergraduate, and worked as an investment banker at Credit Suisse First Boston, private equity analyst at Thayer Capital, hedge fund analyst at Millenium and Mayo Capital, and portfolio manager at Blackrock before trying his hand on his own.  Even with that s...

Mark Baumgartner is the CIO of the Institute for Advanced Study, where he oversees a $1 billion portfolio that seeks to achieve just median returns but with significantly less risk.  Prior to joining IAS, Mark had stints at the Ford Foundation overseeing risk, at Morgan Stanley's Alternative Investment Partners, at both quantitative and qualitative hedge funds, and as a management consultant.  Oh,...

My guest on today's show once again is Annie Duke, decision-making expert, former world-famous poker player, and author of the best seller, Thinking in Bets .  I had a chance to interview Annie at The Investment Institute's Fall Forum in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and the live interview follows. Special thanks to Andrea Szigethy and Donna Holly, founders of the Institute, for having Annie and me...